Risk factors for depression relapse while on long-term maintenance antidepressant treatment

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In her debut blog, Asha Ladwa discusses a secondary analysis of data from the ANTLER trial, which investigated the clinical factors associated with relapse in primary care patients on long-term maintenance antidepressants.

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Optimal antipsychotic dosing in first-episode schizophrenia: how much is too little, too much, or just right?

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Joe Pierre reports on the first published study exploring the relationship between antipsychotic dose and risk of relapse in first episode schizophrenia, which suggests that standard antipsychotic dosing is best for relapse prevention.

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Lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder

Lamotrigine, an anticonvulsant drug, is licensed in the United States for the maintenance treatment of bipolar I disorder and in the UK to prevent depressive episodes in bipolar disorder. Hashimoto and colleagues (2021) performed a Cochrane Intervention Review to explore whether lamotrigine is effective and safe compared to the most established maintenance treatment, lithium, and placebo.

Michael Ostacher critically appraises and summarises a recent Cochrane systematic review, which presents the latest best evidence on the efficacy of lamotrigine in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder.

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How consistent are international treatment guidelines for bipolar disorder?

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Steven Marwaha publishes his debut blog on a review article that asks if there is consensus across international evidence-based guidelines for the management of bipolar disorder.

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Depot antipsychotics: If you pay me, you can keep injecting me

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John Baker looks at the 2-year follow-up results of a cluster RCT on the effectiveness of financial incentives to improve adherence to maintenance treatment with depot antipsychotics.

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Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy cannot substitute maintenance antidepressants for preventing depression relapse

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Ioana Cristea takes a closer look at a recent non-inferiority RCT, which compares mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) plus discontinued antidepressants versus MBCT and maintenance antidepressants.

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Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to prevent depression

In April 2015 we blogged PREVENT and concluded that mindfulness based cognitive therapy is a promising intervention for preventing depression.

André Tomlin presents the results of the PREVENT RCT published today in The Lancet, which investigates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with maintenance antidepressant treatment in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence.

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Medication for the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder

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Elena Marcus summarises a recent network meta-analysis published in The Lancet of the comparative efficacy and tolerability of medication for the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder.

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How does buprenorphine fair as an alternative to methadone for treating opioid dependence?

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Meg Fluharty summarises a recent Cochrane review, which tells us that high-dose buprenorphine is an effective maintenance treatment for heroin compared to placebo, but fixed flexible-dosing methadone is superior to buprenorphine at participant retention.

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Extended therapy with varenicline reduces rates of smoking relapse in people with serious mental health issues

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People with serious mental health issues such as schizophrenia have higher rates of cigarette smoking than the general population, with estimates suggesting more than 50% are current smokers. When people in this population do manage to quit during treatment we then see particularly high rates of relapse after treatment ends. A new randomised control trial (Evins [read the full story…]